If we beat Denver in the next game we're four games up on them and essentially three games up on Memphis due to the tiebreaker. Udoka said he plans on getting Reed rotation minutes again this season and it's probably when playoff seeding is more secured later in the season. I agree with you that Reed has been a negative on the court thus far and the margins have been too slim to chance it despite his much higher upside over Holiday. But his time is coming.
Exactly. He WAS given the opportunity. Dude averaged 11 minutes per game. He just wasn’t able to seize the opportunity by playing timidly and passively. Developing in the G-league is the right move.
It depends on your assumptions. Do you assume Reed Sheppard never snaps out of his cold shooting streak if he was actually given consistent minutes rather than being jerked around? I mean, that's pretty much what you have to assume in order to have that opinion. There are 2 times Ime chose to dick around with Sheppard's minutes, one early in the season that led to him being more timid on the court and shooting worse...but he bounced back....only for Ime to do it again after the 18th game of the season and he couldn't bounce back the second time and he's shot 14% since then. In those first 18 games, Reed shot 38% from 3 and the Rockets went 12-6 in the 15 games where Holiday has taken those minutes, the Rockets are 10-5. The only real difference is that the young guy loses out on development.
Well no, of course not, I don't assume he'll never snap out of it. The decision would actually be really easy if that were the case, then you just never play him at all. The fact that he definitely will, at some point, be better than Holiday is what makes it tricky. I'm just saying I recognize that it's a very difficult position to be in as a head coach because right now, today, it's not true. And you don't know when he's going to be better than Holiday, so how long can you sacrifice your own winning chances under that assumption that it will eventually get better? How many games will it take? How many are you willing to lose? I'm just saying Ime isn't an idiot or incompetent, it's just a tough situation.
I think they should just let him keep playing in the G League for another month, and then maybe bring him in for 11 min in a couple back to back games to see if he will shoot more, and how he does. If he still hesitates to do more offensively then send him back to the G League for another stint and try it again. It's going to be up to Reed to show he is worthy as the guy coming off the bench this year.
If it was your decision, how many minutes would you play Reed? If it was my choice i would play him around 26-28 right now.
Who am I playing against? If it's against a good team and I'm trying to win the answer is 0. The right answer to this question is "as many as you can without sacrificing the win" but that's impossible to know. I think every minute you play him is self sabotage. And I think that's a really hard thing to estimate, like, if you sub him in during the second quarter and he goes -7 in his 9 minutes, and you lose the game by 2, would that have been a win if you played Holiday instead? It probably would have. But if you were winning in the second quarter when he subbed in, how would you know that it would end up mattering? So I think you play him zero minutes against good teams, and as much as possible against bad teams. And you really give him the green light in 4th quarter blowouts. And then at some point he'll get comfortable enough in the NBA that he'll have a positive impact and you won't have to worry about it. When you say you want to play him 26-28 minutes, are you accepting that you'll just be sacrificing some amount of wins, and you're okay with that? Because you prioritize the long term development over wins this season? Or do you disagree that we'd be sacrificing wins?
I’m completely fine sacrificing wins this season, that doesn’t matter to me even a little bit. His development is miles more important to me for the long term success than if we win 48 or 52 games this season, that’s completely irrelevant to me.
I am torn. I don’t know if I wanna sacrifice a few wins this year getting the number two seed could do a lot for our development in the long run.
Yeah I feel the same way. I put a lot of value on that high seed because it gives us tangible and intangible benefits. The intangible is like what it would do for our confidence, this would prove to the team and the players how good they actually are, what they're capable of, etc. But another really big deal is the fact that it could give us WAY more playoff experience, like if we're the 2 seed we can probably actually beat the 7 seed? So then we get two series worth of experience? And who knows, maybe we could win two rounds? Idk. Compare that to ending the season at the 5, 6, or 7 seed and we're probably a first round exit. So I think that's valuable too.
I was there literally on the floor under the basket. No, he likely wouldn't have. Fred was playing facilitator last night because he saw Jalen going off and was allowing Alperen and Amen do their things. Don't ignore the 9 assists along with the low scoring (on only 5 shots). I think he's going to be a very good player. He just isn't there yet and he should get minutes in the G-League. If this was the team 2 years ago, I give him minutes. But this is the team sitting comfortably in the 2nd seed in the West with the 4th best record in the league. Less time for development when you're looking at a high seed and within your next 10 games have @ Denver, @ Sac, Clevelend twice (h & a), @ New York, @ Boston, @ Memphis (also @ Detroit who doesn't suck this season). I'm not saying we're title contenders, yet...but you also don't blow an opportunity at a high seed in the name of developing one player.
I just reject the premise that swapping Reed for Holiday would cost the team any wins. We're not talking about a starting role, we're talking about 10-15 minutes a game in the spot of a random nobody.
Some teams get the low seeds because of factors other than how good they are. For example, Dallas will probably drop to play-in territory if Luka is down for a long stretch. Some teams also make big trade and turn into stronger teams come playoffs time even though they were not doing very well in the regular season. My point is, getting a high seed may or may not mean success in the first round. Injuries have a lot to do with seeding. That would not be my highest priority. The only spot I don't want is #8 facing OKC in the first round. Every other playoffs team in the West is pretty much on the same level if healthy. We have good depth. So far injuries have not stopped us. Tari's has the most significant impact. Now Jabari's injury my not seem to make a lot of difference because of Amen's increased role. But it definitely depletes our depth. If we have one more core guy down, we may see us slipping in the standings.
I think the standings only displays that the Rockets are doing well and not what would lack with the roster...... Also the net differential have the Rockets lumped in a group with New York and Denver, good contending teams but a notch below OKC, Boston and the Cavs.
I disagree about sacrificing wins for the individual. Reed will keep getting chances. Decent chance he breaks out next season.
If there is a G league game to be played, Reed should playing. No reason for him to be in NBA until he gets more experience.